Tag: "seniors"

It’s Better To Be Old in America

Despite a Think Progress report that uses a data bait and switch in order to make good news look bad, Think Progress reports on about a big reduction in deaths from heart disease and stroke in the U.S. and the resulting increase in life expectancy of Americans over 65:

 According to a government report about the well-being of older Americans, today’s 65-year-olds can expect to live longer — to age 85, compared to 79 in 1980 — and healthier than previous generations. Deaths from heart disease and stroke have dropped almost 50 percent, which has helped to increase the average life expectancy for Americans.

And then strives to make the good news look bad:

…a dozen developed nations had longer life expectancies than America’s. Even though the U.S. and Japan had about equal life expectancies 30 years ago, Japanese citizens live about four years longer — to 89 — on average than Americans.

What Think Progress doesn’t mention is that demographic studies suggest that the shorter U.S. life-expectancy probably results from higher mortality in those under age 65. Higher mortality under age 65 is affected by many factors, including accident rates, homicide rates among the inner city poor, data artifacts like those that produce the spuriously high U.S. infant mortality rankings, differences in deleterious personal behaviors like smoking, overweight, or alcoholism, and the quality and availability of medical care.

Read More » »

Aug 31, 2012 | 5 comments | by

Ten Myths about Mediscare

If you like public policy, this is potentially an ideal time to have a serious national discussion about the future of Medicare. What we are getting instead is something akin to school yard taunts. The worst thing you can say about Mitt Romney and Medicare is that he is confused. The best thing you can say about Barack Obama is that he has trouble with the truth.

Here is my prediction. Seniors are not going to be fooled by sound bites and smears. They really are going to figure this out. And it’s not going to be good for President Obama.

They’re in my Forbes column. Read ’em and weep.

Aug 24, 2012 | 13 comments | by

Why Does ObamaCare Rob Medicare to Create a New Entitlement for Young People?

Avik Roy examines the case for the defense and finds it wanting:

Excuse #1. Paul Ryan’s GOP budget did it too.

Excuse #2. ObamaCare’s Medicare cuts don’t harm seniors’ health benefits.

Excuse #3. ObamaCare cuts wasteful spending from the Medicare Advantage program.

Excuse #4. The Romney plan for Medicare is worse, because it would shift costs to seniors.

Aug 17, 2012 | 8 comments | by

What if Social Security Were Run Like Medicare?

Medicare and Social Security are often tied together as the two great pillars of America’s commitment to the well being of our seniors. But, in fact the two programs could hardly be more different.

Medicare is vastly complicated, paying directly for the health care services of some 50 million people and contracting with hundreds of thousands of health care providers. It fixes the prices paid for every service delivered and prohibits any charges above those prices. “Balance billing” is forbidden. Medicare decides what is and is not an appropriate service for coverage purposes, and is increasingly directing providers on how they must provide the services for which they are paid. Other than some strictly defined supplemental insurance, Medicare is a monopoly insurer.

Read More » »

Aug 03, 2012 | 18 comments | by

Hospitals with High Readmissions, and Other Links

Some hospitals with high readmissions are actually doing a better job than most in keeping Medicare patients alive.

Are doctors paid too much?

Does Medicaid really save lives? Why that study may be wrong.

The strange morality of elderly entitlement programs.

Aug 02, 2012 | 7 comments | by

More Silly Numbers

Families USA has a new report, claiming that “64.8 million non-elderly Americans have been diagnosed with pre-existing conditions that could lead to denials of coverage, absent health reform.” At least that’s only half of the Obama administration’s whopper. An HHS report last year put the number at 129 million individuals.

Yet for several years now there has been a remedy that does not require 159 new agencies or $1.8 trillion in new spending. People who have been denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition are able to buy insurance for the same premium healthy people pay from new federal risk pools. Yet according to the most recent data only 73,333 individuals have enrolled.

See Chris Jacobs’ analysis.

Jul 31, 2012 | 12 comments | by

Flawed Commonwealth Study

A study by the Commonwealth Fund concludes that seniors in Medicare are less likely than those with employer-provided coverage to encounter problems with medical bills or experience access problems due to cost. But how can that be?

As Chris Jacobs notes, a Congressional Research Service report found that traditional Medicare covers between 5 and 15 percent fewer expected health costs than the average employer-provided plan. And most health economists rate Medicare as poorly designed, since it covers many small medical bills which can easily be paid out-of-pocket, while leaving beneficiaries exposed for thousands of dollars of catastrophic costs.

The answer: 83% of the Medicare beneficiaries surveyed had supplemental coverage [which economists almost universally regard as socially wasteful] that fills the gaps in their basic plan.

Jul 30, 2012 | 6 comments | by

Managed Care for the Vulnerable

One year ago, California began moving certain Medi-Cal patients into a managed healthcare system…[b]ut for some of these low-income seniors and disabled patients, the transition has been anything but smooth, forcing severely ill patients to give up their doctors, delay treatment and travel long distances for specialty care…

Patients could apply for temporary exemptions…But the patients had to meet a high bar: They had to be in ongoing care for a serious illness and any change could cause their condition to deteriorate…Nearly 18% of the 19,684 people who applied for exemptions between June of last year and April were approved, according to the state. Almost 32% were denied and the rest had their papers sent back as incomplete.

Source: Anna Gorman in the LA Times.

Jul 11, 2012 | 3 comments | by

Nunes: Let’s Privatize Health Care

Geared toward low-income individuals and seniors, this simple plan will replace participants’ Medicare and Medicaid benefits with roughly equivalent funds put on a debit-style “Medi-choice” card. Participants can then use their card to buy the health insurance of their choice on the open market and to pay for out-of-pocket expenses such as co-payments and deductibles. In succeeding years the card’s funding level will be adjusted for inflation, and any unused funds will roll over to the next year.

Sen. Devin Nunes in the WSJ.

Jun 25, 2012 | 7 comments | by

Headlines I Wish I Hadn’t Seen

Is ObamaCare the result of a secret deal between the White House and the drug companies?

Reinhardt: for publicly insured low-income families, including the elderly … politicians could effectively ration health care without ever acknowledging that that was what they were doing.

“There’s some data to suggest that the average patient gets to speak for between 12 and 15 seconds before the physician interrupts them.”

34 percent of patients hospitalized for at least one night in the past year said “nurses weren’t available when needed or didn’t respond quickly to requests for help.”

Jun 04, 2012 | 5 comments | by
« Previous Page — Next Page »